If you want to hear/watch the lecture, simply click the above link, right-click on the “Download Podcast” icon at the bottom of the list on the right, and save it to your computer. (The file is 111 MB total.) After it downloads, add .mp4 to the end of the file name, and then simply double-click to play or open it in QuickTime.

Many thanks to Dr. Hector Avalos for the invitation to speak. It was a beautiful evening on a beautiful campus in Ames, IA

Summary:

Robert Cargill, an assistant professor of Classics and religious studies at the University of Iowa, will discuss how recent advances in the fields of archaeology and the digital humanities have enabled scholars to create digital reconstructions of archaeological remains at Qumran, the site associated with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. He uses 3D and virtual reality to introduce the audience to the ancient sites, proposes various reconstructions, and highlights the process for databasing archaeological data. Cargill was the chief architect and designer of the Qumran Visualization Project at UCLA’s Center for Digital Humanities. He has appeared as an expert on the National Geographic special, Writing the Dead Sea Scrolls, and History’s documentary series Bible Secrets Revealed. He is also the author of the recent book, Qumran through (Real) Time: A Virtual Reconstruction of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The article addresses the problem of multiculturalism in the Bible, and the disparity between the Bible’s view of multiculturalism and traditional biblical scholarship’s portrayal of the Bible’s view of it.

The article challenges the notion that the prophets were somehow in favor of ethnic and religious pluralism, for while they certainly called on Israel to care for the widows and the orphans, they reserved many of their fiercest condemnations for those who would, in fact, marry foreign peoples or worship foreign gods.

My colleague, Dr. Hector Avalos of Iowa State University, has written a letter to the Editor of the Des Moines Register that swiftly exposes the fallacy of claiming that “a lack of prayer in schools, along with a refusal to display the Ten Commandments in schools” allowed the Sandy Hook Massacre to occur.

Dr. Avalos writes a well-reasoned argument that is succinct and rooted in facts. He writes:

Second, there is no statistical correlation between the exercise of prayer, or respect for the Ten Commandments, and some immunity to mass shootings. Perhaps Austin forgot that 10 Amish girls were shot in 2006 at an Amish school in Lancaster County, Pa. Amish schools allow prayer, and respect the Ten Commandments.